It is next to impossible that a
John Jones should be a poet;--and some kind friend should have broken
the truth to the butler, before he endeavoured to share unpolished glory
with uneducated bards.
An inspired serving-man, in a livery of industry, turned up with
morality, is a species of bard which we never expected to find in the
service of the Muses, or bringing a written character from his last
place, and vaunting of his readiness and ability to write epics and
wait at table. The work we should have looked to meet with, emanating
from the butler's pantry, was a miscellaneous volume full of religious
scraps, essays on dress, receipts for boot-tops, wise cooking
cogitations, remedies for bugs, cures for ropy beer, hints for blacking,
ingredients for punch, thoughts on tapping ale, early rising and killing
fleas. The mischief of the wide dissemination of education is now
becoming apparent, for, poor as authors confessedly are, they have
generally been gentlemen, even in rags--learned men of some degree,
though with exposed elbows--folk only a little lower than the angels!
But never until the schoolmaster was so abundantly abroad, distributing
his spelling-soup to the poor, did we ever hear of a butler writing
poetry, and committing it to the press.
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